1 month ago

your most recent reply is amazingly in-depth and it makes me think which is great considering where we already are with this deck.

If I do add
Rings of Brighthearth
at this juncture (vs. say, next month or whenever it is that I may have expendable funds), the most notable option I'd like to consider for a cut, right now, seems to be
Black Market
. Why? Well, of my redundancies you hit the nail on the head re: my priorities when you mention the use of Pact effects. I love them and sometimes feel a great need to stack a couple together (for me it's usually going to be one enchantment alongside
Butcher of Malakir
for the assurance that I could somewhat easily recur the Butcher). Mana "doublers" like
Nirkana Revenant
and
Caged Sun
are vital for making sure I can make the most out of things like
Torment of Hailfire
or a given Chainer loop. Same with Ritual effects. Banks... well, they can help enable those, but I haven't been able to make the most of
Black Market
yet, and while I've seen great work come from
Revel in Riches
, it's mostly from it outright winning the game for me directly afterwards (though there have been a good few times where I just have a ton of treasures to break bank with beyond its alt-wincon trigger). :P

1 month ago

The name is why I clicked (despite Teysa being one of my favorite characters in Ravnica's lore). It's a double entendre, something that's used a lot in recognized literature such as Shakespeare. Is this Shakespeare's level? Probably not, but I found it to be a witty name nonetheless. I even told a friend I wished I had come up with it. That alone gets my plus one.

Grave Betrayal
: Really costly & with all the creature removal you're running, by the time this is out, iit's just win more.

Wound Reflection
: Just a win more. By the time you're draining life, you should pretty much win without needing this. Especially given it's cost.

Mirage Mirror
: I'm not sure if I'm missing something crazy cool with this, but I don't see it's purpose.

Overseer of the Damned
: With all the
Grave Pact
effects you have, this one seems subpar. The zombies tokens sure seem great, but this is something I would cut if you're trying to lower converted mana costs. (I understand if you decide not to cut him though as I do see the work he can pull)

1 month ago

I'm going to lay it all on the table here to make my train of thought as clear as possible, and back up my statements with source material. I spent way too much time on this already, so I might as well post it!

All of this points to Vampires with two races being the vast minority (again 5.8%) of all Vampires ever printed. Aside from the pre-GCTU Vampires, they all have set-specific reasons for having two racial subtypes or are undead (which seems counter intutive as I've always considered Vampires to be undead already...but I digress).

Here again (for posterity) is the link to the GCTU Announcement. This clarifies what the stance is or R&D in their approach to creature subtypes. From the article, "...we implemented the "race class" model for Magic creatures..." This establishes a baseline for every single MTG creature from September 2007 onward. Elf Druid, Human Warrior, Zombie Knight, etc. This is a framework for card design.

I want to be clear, its a guideline, not a hard and fast rule. In general, they wanted to keep it simple as part of the New World Order of MTG which you can find in an article here. While the article doesn't explicitly state that creatures typing is part of the NWO, it can be inferred from it that simplicity is important in MTG going forward. With that in mind it only makes sense that they would try very hard while designing cards to keep to the "race class" system for both consistency and simplicity. Are they never going to print a card with two races? Of course not, as you mentioned
Frilled Mystic
and as I mentioned
Vorel of the Hull Clade
. Wizards isn't afraid to work outside their own general guidelines if it suits their purposes, fits with the lore (this one is important for this argument), and doesn't unbalance the game.

By your argument, every Vampire would have the "Pre-Vampire-Race Vampire Class" e.g. Elf Vampire Druid, Human Vampire Warrior, Vampire Zombie Knight. Could they do it? Sure, but it goes against R&D's stated goal for what they want for MTG going forward by adding needless complexity (and letterhead) to cards.

Your example of Ahn-Crop Invader brings up an interesting point though and I have a thought about it. Let's use some cards with current links as examples. For you side I produce
Marauding Boneslasher
. A Zombie Minotaur 'Race Race" just like your example. For my side I produce
Merciless Eternal
. A Zombie Cleric "Race Class." I think what this shows is that when Wizards does put two races on a card it is unlikely be two "Common" races. E.g. Zombie Human, Elf Goblin, etc., unless there are extreme circumstances (Looking at you Vorel). Again I think it comes back to complexity. If every undead or mutated creature had to state its pre-death/mutation type, there'd be way too many of the core tribes in the game. The vast majority of Vampires and Zombies were originally humans judging from their art. By giving cards like that the Human subtype, Humans as a tribe would become overly powerful simply from having a large pool to draw cards from. Keeping the number of races/classes on a card to a minimum could potentially be balance related.

tldr:

1) Multi-Race Vampires are small percentage of all Vampires ever printed.

2) Wizards wants to consistent in its product and has chosen the "Race Class" model for subtypes

3) Wizards wants to keep the game simple when possible. Extra subtypes go against this and as such are only used when crucial mechanically (e.g. Horrors for the Eldritch Moon block) or from a lore perspective (e.g.
Yahenni, Undying Partisan
)

2 months ago

Nirkana Revenant occurrence in decks from the last year

Commander / EDH:

All decks: 0.02%

Black: 0.64%

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